


Braver

by openhearts



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: F/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7996462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Originally posted at LiveJournal)</p><p>It's not very rational, nor even remotely scientific, but sometimes I find that indulging in inquiry into topics like family gives me insight into my own past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Braver

**Author's Note:**

> This funny little thing has been sitting in my email drafts since like a week after the premier aired.  I never got around to doing anything with it, but, especially in light of 100, it just felt right to post now.  Well, right in the way that it just twists the knife that much deeper, because I haven't edited the end at all and now it just kills to even think back that far in canon.  
>   
> And, I don't know why it came out in first person POV and a random section of text messages.  But there you have it.

I needed to know how she knew her sister was buried under the fountain.  I needed to know about sisters, about siblings and families.  She seemed to think her psychic abilities led her to her sister, but maybe there was some familial bond they had that I didn't know about.  It's not very rational, nor even remotely scientific, but sometimes I find that indulging in inquiry into topics like family gives me insight into my own past.  
  
I went to Avalon for anwers.  
  
How did Avalon know where her sister was buried?  Did most siblings think they had this kind of phsycic connection, or was it unique to Stephanie and Jenny?  I love Russ, but I don't have the connection with him Avalon seemed to have with her sister.  Does Booth think he and Jared shared this kind of connection?  Clearly Booth was beginning to have doubts about the invalidity of Avalon's claims to be a psychic.  
  
I roll my eyes as I approach the door.  Even medicated I know rational from irrational, even if the analgesics dull my recall and processing speeds.  
  
_  
  
  
Avalon told me I thought I was unloveable.  Rationally I knew this was false.  I am an intelligent woman, possessed of physical features found sexually alluring in several different cultures.  I am at the forefront in my field - successful and repsected by my peers.  
  
The logical conclusion is that I am most certainly a loveable person . . . who merely choses to avoid monogamy as a means of preserving my autonomy and preventing undue emotional stress.  It's my choice to avoid these types of relationships, so of course my own qualities never come into question, even though they are impressive by any measuring system.  
  
But historically, evidence to support this claim is lacking.  
  
Left to the foster system by mother, father, brother.  Left, left, left.  Left by Sully to sail the Caribbean.  Left.  
  
And suddenly I'm not so sure that this is what I chose.  
  
_  
  
  
New Text Message From:  Booth, Seeley  
Feeling ok?  
  
New Text Message From:  Bones  
Cognitive processes dulled by meds.  Will probably find your Craig Ferguson show amusing in this state  
  
New Text Message From:  Booth, Seeley  
Haha, very funny  
  
New Text Message From:  Bones  
Exactly.  
  
New Text Message From:  Booth, Seeley  
Srs, u ok?  
  
New Text Message From:  Bones  
Yes.  Thank you.  
  
New Text Message From:  Booth, Seeley  
Dont thank me  Didnt get there in time  
  
New Text Message From:  Bones  
Yes you did.  I'm alive aren't I?  
  
New Text Message From:  Booth, Seeley  
Close call  Dont like close calls u know that  
  
New Text Message From:  Bones  
Texting abilities intact.  All is well.  Goodnight, Booth.  
  
New Text Message From:  Booth, Seeley  
Ur door locked?  
  
New Text Message From:  Bones  
Goodnight, Booth.  
  
New Text Message From:  Booth, Seeley  
Nite, Bones  
  
_  
  
  
I'm still fiddling with my phone when Caroline comes in, and she seems disturbed that I'm wearing the shirt with Bones' blood on it.  To tell the truth I hadn't thought about changing it because it served my guilty conscience well.  She's the brain, and I'm the cop, and the body that's there to shield hers from bullets, and tooth-shrapnel, and voodoo, and chipped knives, and hungry dogs.  I protect her so she can do the science so I can go get the guy.  And that's all.  That's fucking all.  
  
_  
  
  
Yes Bones, you're right, blood is in my heart.  
  
My blood is in my heart, and your blood was on my shirt over my heart yesterday, because I was busy doing show and tell with labia-brain pictures for Avalon Harmonica while you were getting stabbed by Demento-doc.  I killed him, and I wore your blood on my shirt like some sick badge of honor.  
  
As if it proved that the fear and the panic that I felt while I held you as tight as I could, while your blood ran down my fingers and then soaked into my shirt . . . as if that stain proved somehow that I'm in love with you even though I can't say it.  More than I was before anyway, when your near-death experiences merely got me pissed off at the world, and not shaken completely out of sync.  As if brain scans or blood stains or coma dreams or any of that was new information.  Your blood on my shirt, and your hands holding on to me while my mouth was on your hair . . . all of it said nothing new.  Said that I need you like I need the blood in my heart.  
  
What's inside my heart was on the outside.  It didn't get spelled out the way it should have.  I chickened out because of the socks and the clown and the fact that sometimes you still look like Bren to me as much as you look like Bones.  Bren would have said the same thing:  "blood is in your heart."  
  
I told Bren I loved her a million times.  I held her and kissed her.  I got inside her, and I was willing to kill for her.  I made a baby with her.  I've held you and kissed you.  I've killed for you.  You've killed for me.  I was gonna make a baby with you (in a much less fun way than with Bren.)  My blood's in my heart, and your blood's on my shirt.  As if somehow the adrenaline that made it automatic to hold you and whisper things you would never let me say otherwise made us braver even while we huddled together in that hallway.  Brave enough for you to let me hold you, and to let yourself hold on back.  Brave enough to kiss your hair and promise I was right there, like I always am but never am enough.  
  
Braver.  Maybe someday I'll get this right; I'll be brave enough not to qualify it, and I'll finally know that you know how I feel. Then I won’t feel all this emptiness. Around the blood, in my heart.


End file.
